


Lupin

by pentipus



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Cuddling, Daryl's apparent lack of sexuality, Daryl's childhood, Family, Kissing, M/M, wanting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentipus/pseuds/pentipus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“It’s nothin’.” Daryl looked away, out over the yard to the scattering of walkers stumbling against the outer fence. “Nothin’ you wouldn’t of done for me.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Rick huffed out a laugh and reached over, pulling Daryl towards him with a hand around the back of his neck, kissing Daryl’s temple before burying his nose for a moment in Daryl’s dirty hair.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Stubborn as a damn mule,” Rick grinned, pushing him away. “Prettier though.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Daryl rolled his eyes. “Shut up, man.”</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lupin

They washed as a group in a creek by the side of a soy field, the water ice cold and glinting in the sun. They each stripped naked and waded into the water, laughing and huffing from the cold.

Daryl refused to go in, choosing instead to stand guard, his crossbow held loose at his side. He heard the slap of wet feet behind him and turned to see Rick trudging up the grassy bank from the creek, pulling his trousers straight on over his wet legs.

“The water’s fine, you know,” he said, tipping his head in Daryl’s direction.

“I’m good,” Daryl said, looking away. “Enough bare bodies out here as it is.” He huffed and then said under his breath, “It’s like a damn kill floor.”

Rick snorted out a laugh and nodded. “You could be right.”

“Nearly always am.”

Rick clapped a hand over Daryl’s shoulder before padding away to retrieve the rest of his clothes. Daryl tugged his crossbow up against his shoulder and turned as though he were scanning the ragged edge of the soy field, aiming loose as he looked out of the corner of his eye to where Rick was shrugging on his shirt. He let himself look for a moment, eyes fixed on the white column of skin between the two halves of Rick's shirt for a fleeting second before a bark of laughter had him twitching away, back towards the soy field.

Daryl looked because he wanted to, though he didn’t know why. When he was growing up Merle would bring back drunk girls and fuck them in the bedroom they shared while Daryl cringed away, horrified by the sounds and the heat their heavy bodies made. One time Daryl reached down and cupped his soft cock as his brother’s curses filled the room, twisting his fingers around it to try and make it hard, the way he knew it should. But it didn’t work and never did, so he guessed he had a problem.

Years later he watched Rick Grimes take down seven walkers in a row after they left Hershal’s farm. He turned to face Daryl in the moment between one walker and the next, his face a mask of blood and gore, and Daryl felt something drop like a stone into the pit of his stomach. He took a breath and watched Rick dispatch two more walkers with his blood beating tinnitus-loud in his ears.

Afterwards he had sat on the edge of camp in the dark and pressed the heel of his palm between his legs and felt the pump of his blood there, alien and disconcerting. He thought of Rick with blood across his face and his cock twitched under his hand.

At first he thought it was the violence and that he was just a bloodthirsty motherfucker, but then it happened one day when Rick passed him a scavenged Tootsie Roll with a small smile and a muttered, “You like this shit?” Daryl had shrugged and taken the bar from Rick, startled by the stiletto-thin stab of want in his gut.

Sometimes Rick would catch him looking and nod, gentle, unknowing, and Daryl would look away. He loved Rick, whatever that meant, if it meant anything at all. He loved him like he never loved his brother, like he never loved his father; somehow Rick was both to him and something else entirely.

After Lori they bunked together sometimes, curled around one another in the dark. Rick was in a bad way and spoke in his sleep like a man talking in tongues. Daryl would smooth a hand over Rick’s hair as he slept, over his crown and down to the back of his neck, pressing his fingers against the space at the base of Rick’s skull, soothing him in the places he would have to strike if Rick ever turned.

“You know,” Rick said weeks later as they sat together at the top of the yard, “those nights after Lori, you- You had my back and I never thanked you.”

Daryl nodded, squinting against the sun. “It’s no matter.”

Rick turned to Daryl, stern, the way he got sometimes. “Of course it is.”

“It’s nothin’.” Daryl looked away, out over the yard to the scattering of walkers stumbling against the outer fence. “Nothin’ you wouldn’t of done for me.”

Rick huffed out a laugh and reached over, pulling Daryl towards him with a hand around the back of his neck, kissing Daryl’s temple before burying his nose for a moment in Daryl’s dirty hair.

“Stubborn as a damn mule,” Rick grinned, pushing him away. “Prettier though.”

Daryl rolled his eyes. “Shut up, man.”

Rick snorted and nudged him again before hefting himself up. Daryl stole a look as Rick brushed his hands against his thighs, fixed the tilt of his holster. He felt the familiar tug, the old ache, and looked away.

A week later they were scattered like Lupin seeds, while the prison burnt at their backs. When Daryl finally saw Rick again he watched him bite a man’s throat clean out, blood like spilled paint down Rick’s front and across the gravel under their feet. Afterwards Daryl watched Rick clean the blood from his face in the grey light of a morning spent under the trees.

“You’re my brother,” Rick said, leant back against the truck they would have to leave behind.

 _You’re mine_ , Daryl didn’t say. _You’re my father_. _My greatest friend._

Instead he leant forwards and pressed their foreheads together, his hand covering the blood that covered Rick’s face. When Daryl started to pull away Rick caught the front of his shirt in his fist and pulled him back, kissing Daryl’s lips and the apple of his cheek. He kissed the bridge of Daryl’s nose and breathed deep as he messily pressed their lips together again, his mouth opening in a sob.

“It’s ok,” Daryl said, his voice low, aware of Michonne and Carl sleeping behind the car door at their backs. “It’s ok.”

Rick pulled him again, until his face was buried in the space between Daryl’s shoulder and his neck, Rick’s body heaving with the weight of his sadness. Daryl pressed a hand to the small of Rick’s back and carded the other through his hair, hushing him like he used to with Judith.

“It’s ok,” he said again. “I got your back.”


End file.
